


death is free (it’s afterwards that’s expensive)

by Evelyn_fireheart



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-03 01:10:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19453276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evelyn_fireheart/pseuds/Evelyn_fireheart
Summary: Maybe she should've been drowned at birth.Maybe Howard should've hit her a bit harder and crushed her skull.Maybe those idiots in Afghanistan should've just shot her when they had the chance.It didn't matter now. The point is, none of that happened. Antonia Maria Stark survived.She was deadly now -way past the point of dangerous- and there was no forgiveness in her anymore.One day in centuries to come, the legends would tell of a deity with nothing but war in her eyes. She would laugh it off and deny it's truth.It didn't matter now. Point is, Tony Stark survived.(It never mattered whether Tony was male or female or neither. Tony survived)





	death is free (it’s afterwards that’s expensive)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a first draft.
> 
> Love it anyway.<3<3<3

She had tried so hard to produce children for Howard. Miscarriage after miscarriage had yielded nothing, but then a miracle had happened.

She was pregnant with a baby boy. _Perfect_.

Howard, for the first time in years, is almost joyous. Maria looks to her husband and, for the first time, sees a sliver of the man she had fallen in love with. The engineer who coaxed inventions into being as if life were his servant, who had learnt Italian for her. 

Maria thanks the stars above for gifting her with a child. She puts her head to the floor in gratefulness for the fact she was gifted with a _son_.

* * *

Antonia Maria Stark is born screaming. 

She screams as if the universe were shattering, as if she understood how silenced she would be. As if she wanted to prevent it ever happening.

And it hurts terribly, but Maria finds it in herself to love her. The little baby; so small and delicate and infinitely beautiful. Her first child.

* * *

Antonia is too female to be loved by Howard. He finds out the kind of monster she was born as and decides she is unworthy. Of his name, his title, life.

Most of all, she was unworthy of the Stark name. It didn’t matter. It would die with her anyway.

Though Antonia’s irises deepen to a soulless black mere days after she is born, and her head of curls flows as gracefully as the Styx. (Later the historians and scholars would wonder if this had been a sign. A harbinger of the destruction to come.)

The monster in Antonia is already only centimetres under her skin by the time she’s a month old, seen by the way she clenches her tiny fists in defiance when her father looks upon her, only to glance away immediately. He acts as if she were repulsive, a streak of black across his great heritage. 

She isn’t, but she resolves to become one.

Maria is different. Maria is soft. She soothes Antonia with songs in the lilting language of her home, and guides her in the ways of the silenced.

When she is old enough to understand the difference, Maria becomes Madre and is placed on the list of the ones she loves. 

The games Madre plays with the fumbling toddler are confusing. Not because they’re difficult, but rather because she doesn’t understand why.

Why is the important question. Why is the word she had learnt to live her life by, for why is the word that satisfies her soul. 

It starts with a simple game of spot the odd one out. First she is set to look at a picture and find something that stands out. Sometimes it’s something obvious, like an ice-cream truck at a skatepark, or a tree in the middle of a crossroads. Other times it’s harder. Like a person standing in the street, made different only by the origins of the clothes they were wearing. (Madre had been so proud of her for that one; the clothes had been of the traditional sort, worn only by those of the country Wakanda. The only piece out of place on the man was a bracelet; small and barely seen, decorated with an almost indistinguishable crest. The sign of the royal house.)

And so Antonia learns how to tell if someone _fits_ , how to see someone and immediately know whether they are meant to be there. This is how Madre teaches her to be perceptive, and it fits the little girl wondrously well.

* * *

Jarvis is the one who soothes Antonia when she slips to the ground, who keeps her porcelain pieces together to prevent to monster leaking out. Jarvis is gentle and understanding where Madre is soft and firm. He is the lingering warmth of a sunbeam, with none of the poisonous radiation. 

Jarvis is on Antonia's list. 

But when she is three years old, Jarvis sits her down in a too-big chair and tells her, "Little miss, there is much for you to learn in this world, and much more for you to understand. One thing is that, in a service where one must always remain silent, one shall learn to listen." He smiled at her, and took her tiny hands in his.

Antonia furrows her brow, but elects to follow the winding words her Jarvis had a habit of weaving. He was on her list, after all, and that gave him certain allowances in her book. "You shall live a hard life, Antonia, and so you must learn the same. You must learn the ways of the silenced, and you must learn how to silence all that you are in favour of who you need to be seen as."

Jarvis leant over the side of the table, and when he turned back to face the curious little girl, there was a weary box in his hands. "For this," he said with a sharp gleam in his eye, "we shall play chess, until you can win not just by the skill of your brain, but by the sharpness of your eyes."

"Yes sir," she said meekly. The gleam of eagerness shone in her eyes though, and did not go unnoted. 

"Well done, Miss Antonia. Now, we shall teach you how to make that as natural as breathing."

* * *

Perhaps others would be surprised that Jarvis, her sweet, kind butler, was the one to teach her how to lie through her teeth. She wasn't.

Edwin Jarvis was the personal butler and chauffer to Dr Howard Stark. Stark who abused and manipulated and cheated. He knew secrets that would never seen the light of day, secrets that he would be killed for. It meant that he taught her how to lie as convincingly as a spy, how to lie with your entire body and sprinkle it with truth to turn away suspicious eyes. 

Of course, this training was only expanded upon by her beloved Aunt Peggy.


End file.
